In general, markets efficiently “clear” a seller's supply of a given product at a price reflective of buyer demand at a particular point in time. When demand is high, the seller can charge a high price for the product. When demand is low, on the other hand, the seller must accept a lower price for the product.
Demand for the product, however, may increase after the seller's supply has been cleared at a low price, resulting in a missed opportunity for profit. Consider, by way of example, the case of an airline selling airline tickets. All of the tickets for a particular flight may have been sold months in advance for $100 each. At the last minute, however, a surge in demand may result in potential customers offering $200 for a ticket on that flight. At this point, the seller can do nothing to profit from the increased demand.
This consequence is caused by the seller's inability to take back a previously sold product and then resell it at the higher price. That is, after the product has been sold, the seller is not typically able to rescind the transaction simply because demand for the product increases.
Because sales are generally not rescindable, the seller is forced to make pricing and inventory decisions that are, at best, speculative. In the airline industry, two practices have been employed to make optimal decisions for the seller. The first practice, called “revenue management,” involves the dynamic adjustment of price according to real-time readings of supply, demand, competitive factors and historical purchase trends. The second practice, called “demand forecasting,” involves analysis of historical and projected factors that effect sales, including prior sales, weather patterns and the like. Even when both of these concepts are used so that price is a demand forecast factor and demand forecast data effects price, the predictions still have an inherent margin of error, resulting in lost revenue opportunities.
Another problem with known methods of selling products is that purchasers cannot take advantage of an increase in demand. The ticket holder discussed above is not likely to be aware that potential customers are willing to pay $200 for the ticket he or she has already purchased for $100. A potential customer who is willing to pay more for a product that is no longer available from the seller currently has no simple way to communicate with, for example, ticket holders. Known methods of contacting ticket holders, such as through a newspaper advertisement, are not very effective and incur additional costs, such as the price of the advertisement.
Thus, a need exists for a system and method that enables sellers, such as airlines, to capitalize on demand identified after a sale when the value of that demand surpasses the value of the demand realized at the time of the sale.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,253,165 to Leiseca et al. is directed to a computerized reservation and scheduling system that lets consumers negotiate for, and select from, pre-scheduled transportation services. The Leiseca patent does not address how a transportation provider could resell a previously-sold transportation product.
Similarly, PCT International Publication Number WO 96/34356 (the “WO '356 reference”) discloses that consumers can use posting terminals to communicate with a market maker computer to create a computerized market for previously sold goods. The WO '356 reference does not disclose that a product, previously sold, can be resold.